TEACHERS, what are your thoughts on "No Child Left Behind?"?

Question

What state are you in and is it working there?

Or should I say, in which state do you live and is the program working?

Answer 1

I am not an elementary or secondary school teacher, but have a graduate degree and teach some community college courses. In nearly every profession you will get fired if you do your job poorly. This is not true in education. Teachers ride the system and are not held accountable. Think about college students...the ones who can't figure out what to do with their degree always say..."well I guess I could teach"... Even at the graduate level, education programs have considerably lower GRE admission standards than real masters and Ph.D. programs. It is time that teachers not stand behind the protections of the teachers' unions and be held accountable for what they teach. The good ones should be paid according to their merit and not seniority and the bad ones should be fired.

I overcame a school district of dumbass teachers to get a Ph.D.

Answer 2

I have never believed, and still do not, that ANY program run by the federal government can be done so effectively if that program affects all of the states. The oversight is just impossible and requires so many people that mounds of paper work take the place of people and evaluators dooming the program from its inception. No child left behind is one of those programs that has caused so much grief and confusion that it has to be deemed a failure!!

Chow!!

Answer 3

Georgia, it should be known that the reason no child is left behind is that they do not let children get ahead enough by learning so that everyone is on the same level. Also not much learning or help for the special education departments and esol students so schools sneak and dont report the test scores of those children so the school get a higher grade and funding isnt spent on teaching the children.

Answer 4

Within this law is a most evil provision. This law allows anyone recruiting for any branch of the Armed Forces to request personal contact information from any public high school accepting federal funding regarding any student currently enrolled. This means a recruiter can call a H.S., ask for "john's" or "jane's" phone number, and try to sell them the idea that enlisting is the right thing to do-without the parent(s) having consented to giving out the home phone number OR allowing their child to be given a "pitch" on signing up! It's a form of "pseudo-draft" re these current wars-Politicians know that to start a draft would create protests and riots and more importantly (to them)-cost them their cushy jobs!! So, in this way, those with few prospects for college of any type out of high school are enticed to enlist to beef up the numbers to feed the forces. You get the benefits IF you come back alive (and that's a BIG if-just read the daily papers).AND if a school refuses to give out the requested contact information, they could LOSE FEDERAL FUNDING-so it's a form of financial blackmail.
I am a Substitute teacher in Southern California, and for this reason and others I believe this Act to be a scourge and a lie!!

Answer 5

Georgia - I am not currently teaching, but I am affiliated with a school board. I see direct effects on the special education departments when it comes to stadardized testing. We have dealt with appeals to test failures because NCLBA wants special education students that are not at grade level to pass a standard test like everyone else or get held back!
They have also reduced special education resources to where some schools are combining physical handicapped, learning disabled, and behavior problem students all in the same class and require them to all be taught the same.

Answer 6

Its not working anywhere. Without competition in schools they will never improve on the socialist method of public education practiced in the US today. Implementing the "no teacher kept beyond" competence program would also improve education.

Answer 7

i live in Nebraska, and two of my children have developmental delays, they have benefit ted greatly from this program, if it were not for this, they definitely would have been left behind.
on a second note, however, i must agree that it depends on the funding of the school, my children's school seems to be funded well, so i am not arguing that this has worked out everywhere. just wanted to say it hasn't failed everywhere

Answer 8

I'm not a teacher. However, I think its a great idea in priniciple that was executed horribly. The premise is that they test schools to see if they are good enough. If they are not good enough they cut funding. They fund schools with better scores more. I don't see how that makes sense. It seems to me that struggling schools could use more funding to help them get better. I think overall we need to add more funding to our entire school system.

Answer 9

im not a teacher but im from GA & who the hell knows? they expect the special ed to take the same evaluation test -im assuming according to thier age so it isnt very accurate - but were getting a new test for them this yr . so maybe all our schools wont be failing!

Answer 10

michigan--it is absolutely ridiculous that I need to spend my first two months of teaching reviewing previous material/drilling/cramming for the MEAP test, and then the following three weeks administering it. That's three months of wasted time.